“Duet in Bb” (“Nuhyallinz Saints Dance”) Saturday, 08/15/2020
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This brass duet began as the result of a discussion I had with a drummer/saxophonist I had met up with at Wendy’s on Custer near the corner of Renner in Richardson, TX. We had talked off and on at our church’s orchestra rehearsals about composing together. He was an educated musician who had lived in Denver for some time and was interested in making connections now in the Dallas area, his new home. We met at the restaurant specifically to discuss what we would do.
I had run into situations like this, where individuals take great joy in talking about working together, but never follow-up on the discussion. He talked at length about his background and interests, which certainly were important, but my concern was on whether we could actually work together. I tried to get him to nail down, specifically, what he would like to do, but he seemed to wander off in a verbal ”stream of consciousness,” that led to no definable plan of action.
I proposed a solution. We would each compose several bars of music for whatever single instrument of choice we wished, over the next week. Then email a copy of what we had done, one to the other. He would come up with music to then complement/complete what I had written and I would compose something to match together with what he had written. So perhaps, he writes a melody for saxophone and I, in response, write a guitar accompaniment to go with it. I write, perhaps, something melodic for baritone and he comes up with a harmonization to play on sax or a rhythm track on drums.
He agreed to this. We parted ways. As I walked home from Wendy’s, probably less than a mile, I began working out, in my head, at least two, maybe three or four melodic/rhythmic ideas that I thought might work as a nice basis for a jazz duet. When I got home, I jotted them out on a piece of paper, so that I would not forget them. Sometime over the next few days, I revisited those ideas and pieced them into what would become the baritone part to “Duet in Bb.”
I emailed these to the saxophonist/drummer, but never got a response. The few times I saw him afterwards, he expressed the same sentiment regarding a desire to work with me, so I sent the part again and asked him to send his idea to me. After the second or third time of this kind of conversation, I realized it was highly unlikely that he had the intention of actually making good. He was not the first person I had run into like this over the years and this exercise was something I had devised to filter out the insincere. I genuinely enjoy collaborating, so having to move forward completely on my own was disappointing.
Later, my wife, Christy, asked me to write something for her that we could play together on our horns. Since I had already worked out the baritone for myself, I came up with what I thought might be an upper part that she could play on F horn. It turned out to be too challenging for her chops, so I notated that part for Eb alto horn instead, so I could play it.
This piece went through more metamorphosis when I learned of the brass fanfare contest at the Dallas Winds. I added an intro and broadened the instrumentation, also, adding an antiphonal element. The contest judges were not interested. Thus, when I began recording for project one, I decided to drop the intro, the fanfare instrumentation and the antiphonal element. I did, however, program percussion throughout. I later decided to add tuba doubling the baritone at unison or octave and cornet to match selections of the alto horn in the repeat.
Along the way, I fell in love with the sound of Rebirth Brass Band and decided I should call the piece, “Nuhyallinz Saints Dance,” in memory of my mom’s dad whose family was from New Orleans. My Paw Paw, as well as his brothers and sisters all spoke with a New Orleans accent and always pronounced “New Orleans” like it was one word with a “y” in the middle of it. Of course, the Saints football team is my favorite in the NFL, so this is definitely a bit of a nod to them and to “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In.”
I did not write this piece to necessarily reflect a preconceived harmonic progression. All my ideas were conceived fairly exclusively as melodic/rhythmic. I certainly used harmonization between the two parts to create a sense of tension and release, but the melodic and rhythmic interplay was in the forefront. I have, up to this point, never even attempted to analyze with respect to chord progression. Finally, I wanted the motivic elements to drive the meter, rather than the other way around.